Transcript: HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Mitt Romney

June 14, 2009

Page 5 of 16

SEBELIUS: I think he is making it clear the -- that's a direction
he thinks will be beneficial for the public and for -- to make sure that
costs go down. And that's a central belief of his. This has to lower
costs for everyone.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Sebelius, thanks very much for your time
this morning.

SEBELIUS: Thank you.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me now bring in, for Republican a perspective,
former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, also a former presidential
candidate.

Let me just start, right out there, Governor, with the public
option. Is that a red line for Republicans?

If there's a public option in this plan, should Republicans reject it?

ROMNEY: Yes, of course, they should. Let's -- let's start out from
the very beginning, which is Republicans recognize and have said for a
long time we've got problems in health care; we need health care reform.

And, you know, we took that on in Massachusetts. We decided we
wanted to get everybody insured. We've done that. I understand that
the president considers his plan, in some respects, following the model
of Massachusetts.

Let's learn from our experience. And that is, we got everybody in
our state insured. Some 98 percent now are covered by insurance. And
we did not have to put in place a government plan.

We have competition in the health insurance market. There are
hundreds of health insurance companies that all compete with each
other. We don't need to have the government get in and create a health
insurance company in order to have competition. We've already got

And let's be clear, here, George. This is not about getting
competition in health coverage, which is already there. This is instead
a Trojan horse. Barack Obama, when he ran for office, said he's in
favor of a single-payer system. He's said it for years. This is a way
of getting government in the insurance business so they can take over
health care.

It's the wrong way to go. And every single Republican and every
thinking Democrat who knows something about the private sector would
realize the wrong thing for America is to get government into the health
care business.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Except, Governor, you bring up the Massachusetts
plan. And you're exactly right. And most studies have shown that
Massachusetts has done a very good job of expanding coverage with this
plan but has not done as good a job of controlling costs.

And some say that's because of the absence of a public plan. Alan
Sager, professor of health policy at Boston University has said that
health spending per person in Massachusetts has increased faster than
the national average in seven of the last eight years.

ROMNEY: Massachusetts is an expensive state to do a lot of things.
But the key thing I can tell you is this. What's happened to the health
insurance premium for people buying insurance in Massachusetts? It's
been cut in half.

For an individual, a young male, let's say 35 years old, buying
insurance in Massachusetts for themselves, the premium has been cut in
half since our plan went in place.

So the cost of buying insurance is down. And that's the course that
you have to have for the nation. Look, the idea that you have to get
government into an enterprise in order for that to become competitive
makes no sense at all.